Leaning, Living
by L56895
Summary: Originally written as two separate kinktober prompt fics. Before and after Paine saves Nooj's life.
1. Leaning

Despite her hardest attempts, it was impossible not to feel drawn to him; he kept his distance from their group, brooding quietly in the corner of the tent that had been pitched for the recruits at the base in Bikanel. He had barely spoken to her in that first week, only to confirm his name for her initial recordings. She had already known him, of course, the stories of Nooj the Undying rippled anywhere soldiers gathered, but she was shrewd enough to know that a man who had become infamous through injuries that severe did not want to be reminded.

Still, she sought him out most evenings, if only to offer one of the better morsels she swiped from the food tent. At first he sent her away, claiming he was satisfied with the share he had taken towards the end of food service, but she noticed him watching her when he thought she wasn't looking. His face was impenetrable, but sometimes she could have sworn she saw the twitch of a smile playing across his lips.

Then, he would linger near her; sometimes sitting across from her on the bench, sometimes simply stopping to check her weapon was properly loaded for the day ahead. He had a brusque way about him, not speaking unless necessary, but she recognised the attempt to reach out from a fellow lost soul.

She was waiting for him to find her one evening after a particularly drawn out skirmish in the desert. Another team of recruits had panicked, bombarded them until their ammunition ran out, then watched in horror as Nooj stepped out from behind their cover and berated them with a clip of his machina fist against their skulls. She had lost sight of him soon after they returned to camp and felt a pang of concern when he didn't arrive for supper, although their recent adversaries were nursing their bruised egos in a far corner.

Eventually, she found him a distance from the encampment, cursing with his leg propped up on a rock in front of him. He had braced his back against the wall of rock behind him, the camp had been set up in a sort of desert quarry-site, and when he spotted her approach he leant his head back against the stone, face set in grim defeat.

"Need a hand?"

He gestured to the mechanism that made up his left knee. Gripped in his right hand she noticed a small can of some sort, remembered Gippal's complaints about a youth spent clearing sand out of machina parts.

"This damn sand," he started, shook his head. She stepped forward and, without a word, crouched down to inspect his leg. Gippal had taught her the basics of desert machina care after finding her close to throwing the rudimentary sphere recorder against the rocks and now as she touched Nooj's thigh she tried to focus on the metal and ignore their closeness. Taking the can of oil from his hand, she worked out the fine grains of sand with the pads of her fingers, blowing gently to shift the more stubborn particles. Then the oil, poured sparingly in to the joint until she felt the smooth shift of his calf under her hand as he flexed experimentally. When she finally met his eye, taking a long moment to compose her features before she looked up at him, he was staring at her with lips parted.

"Other than my sphere recorder I've never been this close to machina," she murmured, although she wasn't sure what possessed her to say it. Maybe just to break the awed silence that radiated from him. Slowly, he seemed to come back to life; running his left hand through her hair before pulling her up with a firm grip on her forearms. It felt natural to step in to his embrace, to feel his arms fold around her, and she felt a fluttering in the pit of her stomach.

Straddling his leg, she buried her hands in his hair and breathed in the scent of him, that strange mix of regulation soap and oil. He held her very still, hand splayed out against her back, until she felt his living hand creep down to cup her behind. Letting out a gasp, she stirred against him, rubbed herself against his thigh. In response, he let his hand fall to the buckles that kept her shorts in place, loosened them, and slipped his hand inside to caress the newly exposed skin. There was no hiding the feelings he churned up inside her as his fingers explored, slick against her, but still she turned her face against his cheek and tried to still her heavy breaths. She let out a plaintive moan when he withdrew his hand, heard his soft laugh against her ear.

When he started caressing her with his machina hand she pressed her palms to his cheeks to steady herself; he kept his eyes firmly set on her, lips parted, and she struggled to keep herself from falling. Any of her previous encounters had always been quick, functional, in dark rooms in whatever lodgings she had taken. Never had a man watched her so intently as he pleasured her, never had she been this close to something so forbidden as machina, as enigmatic as Nooj. When he slipped a metal finger inside of her she let out a low moan, pushed herself closer to his hand. She wanted so desperately to kiss him, but she couldn't bring herself to break the spell between them. It was a delirious sensation, at once cold against the hottest part of her and yet so much a part of the living him.

Finally he kissed her. One soft touch of his lips against hers; strangely chaste considering where his hand was. His eyes never left hers, even as he brought her to the brink. He was hypnotic, watching her as if she were a lifelong obsession, and when she reached her peak his pupils dilated at the sight of her. Only then did he kiss her fully, hungrily, and they clung to one another until the chill of the desert night became too much to bear.

The next day she stopped him from killing himself.


	2. Living

The four of them made their way silently back to the desert encampment. No one had spoken since Nooj's outburst, his failed suicide attempt at the hands of a sand fiend. Paine had shouldered her sphere camera soon after; the Maesters would have no interest in the brooding personal dramas of three candidates, and with the approaching sandstorm visibility was poor. She watched Nooj carefully as he walked ahead; his gait was painfully stilted and his shirt was ripped at the back, revealing an open gash. Neither she, nor Gippal and Baralai, had fared much better in the crossfire between recruits, but nothing that could not be solved by a quick visit to the healers' tent. In Nooj's current state of mind there was no way that he would seek a medic and she wondered if their friendship had been damaged so irreparably that he would turn away her help too.

Regardless, she knew that she would risk his rage to find out.

The camp was filling up, candidates that had fared far worse than her friends, somehow, as if what had happened to them today wasn't the worst thing imaginable. She followed the line of broken bodies towards the mess tent, found Gippal and Baralai eating in silence.

"Where's Nooj?"

Gippal looked at her sadly, "I don't think he wants to talk to us right now, Dr P. You look beat, we got you a bowl."

But Paine was already shaking her head and backing away. Nooj. Alone after today. She turned on her heels and marched out of the tent.

Purposeful strides took her further away from the fire and the bustle of soldiers until the sound of voices was replaced by the harsh whirl of desert winds. A little way to the left of the camp she found him, propped up against a collection of large rocks, brooding. He had spotted her before she noticed him and was watching her, his expression unreadable.

"I brought you this," she held out the potion to him, kept her body at a safe distance from his. Something about his current state screamed danger if she got too close; not that he would hurt her, but that she was on the precipice of something painful. She never had managed to untangle how she felt about him. "Your back looks painful."

"Nothing I haven't felt before," he turned his head away from her, looked out across the quiet desert, "Leave me. You have no right to be here."

The desert wind was cool against her skin, almost chilling, and for a moment she considered turning from him and settling back in to the warm mess tent with Baralai and Gippal. They were uncomplicated in their feelings, safer, friends without the threat of something more creeping in on them. Instead she stood rooted to the spot, hand outstretched, and waited. Eventually, he turned back and met her eye; the full force of his sorrow and rage pushing back against her desire to help him.

"You shouldn't-" his voice, usually so strong and sure, broke and she dropped the potion in her haste to get close to him. Up close, his face was a mixture of anguish and anger and she suppressed the voice that told her that coming to him was a mistake, that a man who desired death might be a threat to the one who denied him that pleasure. Still, she stood tall before him, chin straight, defiant, even though she barely reached his eye level when he was sat down. Pushing himself off of the rock he grabbed her roughly by the arms and twisted her round until her back pressed in to the rock face and his body was flush against hers. His hand snaked up to grip her throat, eyes flashing with rage behind his glasses. They stayed like that for a long moment; Nooj's mouth twisted in rage and Paine's hands grasping at his wrists.

"You should have let me die," he snarled, his hand tightening around her throat. It occurred to her that if he had used his machina hand he may have crushed her. Snapped her neck beneath unfeeling fingers. She wondered if he would be grateful; his last painful, unwanted tie to this world extinguished.

"I can't," she gasped, struggling for breath, "Hate me, but I can't." His grip loosened, the twist in his mouth slipped away. She gasped again when he kissed her, his mouth hard against hers. Kissing him felt achingly right, real in the face of the hazy nightmare that the day had become.

His hips pinned her against the rock, his left hand squeezing her buttock to keep her up. Her shorts were loose, he'd somehow worked the strappings free one handed- how long had he practised that in his mind?- and she reached between them to find the fastenings to his breeches. He was already clumsily untying them and shifted to give her access, plunging his fingers between her legs while she groped at his clothing.

He paused before entering her, one hand hooked around her thigh, pulling her legs apart. For a moment she felt he might turn her away, abandon her to the chill of the desert, but then he dipped his face to part her lips and pushed in to her. She cried out against his mouth and he moaned, bit her lip, drove his hips in to hers. The rough stone cut in to her skin, causing tears to sting her eyes, and she gripped his back, felt the sticky blood there from his daytime injuries. With a strangled roar, he slammed her against the rock and the world span. Her head lolled to the side and he trailed his lips down the exposed skin of her neck.

She hadn't expected him to be gentle, in those quiet moments where she imagined them coming together after weeks of dancing around their feelings, but his roughness still shocked her. His fingers dug in to muscle, his teeth bit in to her neck and he made an almost animalistic growl in the back of his throat as he got closer to his release. When he came he backed them away from the wall of rock, propped himself up in his former position and cradled her in his lap as he shuddered beneath her. She buried her hands in his hair and kissed him as he panted, arms braced around her back, then pressed his face in to her neck.

The chill returned.


End file.
